Senate - A.C.T.

(ACT)

Senators Facing Election

Labor (1): Kate LundyLiberal (1): Gary Humphries
(Territory Senate terms are not fixed but tied to elections for the House of Representatives. There is no rotation of Senators, so both Senators face the elctorate whenever a House election is held.)

Group Voting Tickets and Senate Calculator

Assessment

Both ACT Senators face the electorate whenever there is an election, and with only two Senators to elect, the quota for election is 33.3%. Normally this makes it simple for the Labor and Liberal Parties to split the vacancies. However, on three previous occasions the Liberal vote has fallen below the one quota threshold, requiring preferences to be distributed. The last time was in 1998 when the Australian Democrats nominated a high profile candidate in Rick Farley, a former Head of the National Farmers Federation. Despite being forced to preferences, the Liberal Party scrambled its way to a quota through minor party preferences on each occasion.

The graph below shows the percentage votes recorded by party since the first ACT Senate election in 1975.

At the 2004 election the Greens launched a strong campaign to grab a seat from the Liberals by nominating a high profile candidate in Kerrie Tucker, who had served as a member of the ACT Legislative Assembly for the previous nine years. However, the Liberal vote rose rather than fell, and despite the Greens polling 16.4% of the vote, the ACT had its traditional result of 1 Labor and 1 Liberal.

The Green tilt in 2007 had the same outcome. A casual vacancy in 2003 saw long serving Liberal Senator Margaret Reid replaced by Gary Humphries, and he faced his first election in 2007. Against the Greens nominated Kerry Tucker and the party vote rose to 21.5%. However, the Liberal vote remained above 33.3% and preferences did not need top be distributed.

What has happened at recent ACT Senate elections is clear when you look at the vote by party comparing House and Senate results. As the graph below shows, many Labor voters switch to vote for the Democrats and Greens in the Senate. However, the Liberal Party's Senate vote has been slightly higher than its House vote. During election campaigns, the ACT Liberal Party concentrates its television advertising on supporting its Senate vote, and the ACT is the only jurisdiction where the Liberal Party's Senate vote is above its House vote.